Our weekly blog on the New Orleans fine dining scene

News You Can Use and Booze

A mish-mash of dining and drinking news

Robert Peyton

Fried chicken in the kitchen at Coquette

COMING TO YOU FROM THE AUXILIARY NEWSROOM AT NEW ORLEANS MAGAZINE, THIS IS … HAUTE PLATES!

NEWSFLASH: The New Orleans Daiquiri Festival takes place this weekend. THAT’S RIGHT! From July 26-7 from 11 to 8 at 548 Marigny St., you can enjoy frozen drinks, music and the sense that maybe you’ve gone wrong somewhere. Maybe some choice you made brought you to this point? Maybe you should have zigged instead of z agging back there in Albuquerque? Whatever, you’re at the Daiquiri Fest! It’s all ages! Enjoy frozen cocktails, ironically or without irony – THE CHOICE IS YOURS.

Want tickets to the Daquiri Fest? You can buy them conveniently online here.

ITEM! Today your humble reporter heard a radio programme in which another reporter related complaints as to new Deutsche Haus structure to be built on Bayou St. John in this City. Those complaints? IT’S TOO GERMAN. Your humble reporter suffered an intellectual disconnect upon hearing the story, towit: IT IS CALLED "GERMAN HOUSE" SO PERHAPS IT WILL LOOK GERMAN?

Your Reporter is concerned, that’s all.

THIS JUST IN: Tapas restaurant Café Granada has closed, calling into question New Orleans’ dedication to the laid-back, European, food-loving lifestyle. Query: can a dour, puritanical city like New Orleans ever support a casual, small-plates eatery? Your reporter has his doubts. (Note: Café Granada was really good, and your reporter makes sport of the story only to make sport of the story in the broader context of this piece. Your reporter is actually pretty upset about the closing).

THEY SAY: Laughter is the best medicine. YOUR REPORTER SAYS: knock yourself out listening to cassette tapes of Eddie Murphy if you want, but penicillin is a pretty good backup plan.

RUNNING OUT OF OLD-SCHOOL HEADERS: People think fried chicken is a casual or “fast” food, but a few decades ago fried chicken was high-end stuff. Which is why Your Reporter always makes plans to attend Coquette’s fried chicken and champagne dinner. Coquette, as you undoubtedly know, is an actual fine-dining restaurant, and the food there, fried or otherwise, is delicious. The dinner this year takes place on July 31, a week from this very day assuming you are reading this on the day it is published. There are still a few seats left, and you can reserve one of them by calling 265-0421. Tell them I referred you and you’ll get free salt for your fried chicken. (Offer limited to one pinch of salt per customer; not valid in continental US, Canada, Mexico or other, non-contiguous nations. Offer not valid during waking hours. Offer only valid if presented with coupon. Coupon not valid. What are you looking at?)

MORE CAPITAL LETTERS: Your Reporter has just purchased a house. Said house currently has an … interesting color scheme in the kitchen. I am going to paint that room and thought I’d ask your advice on products and techniques. If you have anything to share, I’d appreciate it.

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Our weekly blog on the New Orleans fine dining scene

about

Robert D. Peyton was born at Ochsner Hospital and, apart from four years in Tennessee for college and three years in Baton Rouge for law school, has lived here his entire life. He is a strong believer in the importance of food to our local culture and in the importance of our local food culture, generally. He has practiced law since 1994, and began writing about food on his website, www.appetites.us, in 1999. He mainly wrote about partying that year, obviously.

In 2006, New Orleans Magazine named Appetites the best food blog in New Orleans. The choice was made relatively easy due to the fact that Appetites was, at the time, the only food blog in New Orleans.

He began writing the Restaurant Insider column for New Orleans Magazine in 2007 and has been published inSt. Charles Avenue, Louisiana Life and New Orleans Homes and Lifestyles magazines. He is the only person he knows personally who has been interviewed in GQ magazine, albeit for calling Alan Richman a nasty name. He is not proud of that, incidentally. (Yes, he is.)

Robert’s maternal grandmother is responsible for his love of good food, and he has never since had fried chicken or homemade biscuits as good as hers. He developed his curiosity about restaurant cooking in part from the venerable PBS cooking show "Great Chefs" and has an extensive collection of cookbooks, many of which do not require coloring, and some of which have not been defaced.

Robert lives in Mid-City with his wife Eve and their three children, and is fond of receiving comments and emails. Please humor him.